Boise Cascade Company Reports First Quarter 2025 Results

Boise Cascade Company ("Boise Cascade," the "Company," "we," or "our") (NYSE: BCC) today reported net income of $40.3 million, or $1.06 per share, on sales of $1.5 billion for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025, compared with net income of $104.1 million, or $2.61 per share, on sales of $1.6 billion for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024.

“We delivered solid results during the quarter when considering an environment influenced by constrained demand, difficult weather, and planned downtime at our Oakdale veneer and plywood mill. I am proud of how our team remained both steady and agile in the face of these challenges while continuing to deliver superior value to our customer and vendor partners,” stated Nate Jorgensen, CEO. “As we move through the second quarter and better understand the underlying demand for 2025, we will be prepared and flexible as the economic situation changes. In addition, our strong balance sheet positions us to stay committed to our ongoing strategic investments and make decisions supported by our constructive view of the long-term demand drivers underlying residential construction.”

First Quarter 2025 Highlights

In first quarter 2025, total U.S. housing starts and single-family housing starts decreased 2% and 6%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2024. Single-family housing starts are the key demand driver for our sales.

Wood Products

Wood Products' sales, including sales to Building Materials Distribution (BMD), decreased $53.1 million, or 11%, to $415.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025, from $468.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The decrease in sales was driven by lower sales prices and sales volumes for LVL and I-joists (collectively referred to as EWP). In addition, lower plywood sales prices and sales volumes also contributed to the decrease in sales. Wood Products' segment income decreased $53.5 million to $17.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025, from $71.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The decrease in segment income was due primarily to lower EWP and plywood sales prices, as well as higher per-unit conversion costs as a result of downtime to complete the modernization projects at our Oakdale, Louisiana veneer and plywood mill.

Comparative average net selling prices and sales volume changes for EWP and plywood are as follows:

Building Materials Distribution

BMD's sales decreased $97.9 million, or 7%, to $1,407.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025, from $1,505.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. Compared with the same quarter in the prior year, the decrease in sales was driven by a decrease in sales volume and sales price of 5% and 2%, respectively. By product line, commodity sales decreased 7%, general line product sales decreased 3%, and EWP sales (substantially all of which are sourced through our Wood Products segment) decreased 13%. BMD segment income decreased $24.0 million to $48.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025, from $72.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024. The decrease in segment income was driven by a gross margin decrease of $20.4 million, resulting primarily from lower sales volumes and decreased margins on commodity and EWP products. In addition, depreciation and amortization expense increased $3.3 million.

Balance Sheet and Liquidity

Boise Cascade ended first quarter 2025 with $561.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and $395.7 million of undrawn committed bank line availability, for total available liquidity of $957.5 million. The Company had $450.0 million of outstanding debt at March 31, 2025.

Capital Allocation

We expect capital expenditures in 2025, excluding potential acquisition spending, to total approximately $220 million to $240 million. This level of capital expenditures could increase or decrease as a result of several factors, including acquisitions, efforts to further accelerate organic growth, exercise of lease purchase options, our financial results, future economic conditions, availability of engineering and construction resources, and timing and availability of equipment purchases.

For the three months ended March 31, 2025, the Company paid $10.5 million in common stock dividends. On May 1, 2025, our board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.21 per share on our common stock, payable on June 18, 2025, to stockholders of record on June 2, 2025.

For the three months ended March 31, 2025, the Company paid $53.9 million for the repurchase of approximately 482,700 shares of our common stock. In April 2025, the Company repurchased an additional 179,445 shares of our common stock at a cost of approximately $17 million. Subsequent to these share repurchases, there were approximately 1.1 million shares available for repurchase under our existing share repurchase program.

Outlook

Demand for the products we manufacture, as well as the products we purchase and distribute, is correlated with new residential construction, residential repair-and-remodeling activity, and light commercial construction. Residential construction, particularly new single-family construction, is the key demand driver for the products we manufacture and distribute. Over the past quarter, the operating environment was challenged. In addition to seasonally slower activity, consumer and homebuilder sentiment was dampened due to significant macroeconomic uncertainties and elevated mortgage rates. Given the current environment, 2025 end market demand expectations are difficult to predict, with most forecasts for housing starts ranging between flat to mid-single digit year-over-year declines. Ultimately, the level and expectations for mortgage rates, home affordability, home equity levels, home size, levels of new and existing home inventory for sale, unemployment levels, consumer confidence, and other factors will influence the near-term demand environment. Long term demand drivers for residential construction, characterized by an undersupply in housing units, aging U.S. housing stock, and elevated levels of homeowner equity remain in place.

As a manufacturer of certain commodity products, we have sales and profitability exposure to declines in commodity product prices and rising input costs. Our distribution business purchases and resells a broad mix of products with periods of increasing prices providing the opportunity for higher sales and increased margins, while declining price environments expose us to declines in sales and profitability. Future product pricing, particularly commodity products pricing and input costs, may be volatile in response to economic uncertainties, industry operating rates, supply-related disruptions, imposition of tariffs, transportation constraints or disruptions, net import and export activity, inventory levels in various distribution channels, and seasonal demand patterns. In addition, EWP volumes will continue to be influenced by changes in new single-family housing starts and we expect modest EWP price erosion in the second quarter.

About Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade Company is one of the largest producers of engineered wood products and plywood in North America and a leading U.S. wholesale distributor of building products. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.bc.com.

Webcast and Conference Call

Boise Cascade will host a webcast and conference call to discuss first quarter earnings on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.

To join the webcast, go to the Investors section of our website at www.bc.com/investors and select the Event Calendar link. Analysts and investors who wish to ask questions during the Q&A session can register for the call here.

The archived webcast will be available in the Investors section of Boise Cascade's website.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We refer to the terms EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA in this earnings release and the accompanying Quarterly Statistical Information as supplemental measures of our performance and liquidity that are not required by or presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP). We define EBITDA as income before interest (interest expense and interest income), income taxes, and depreciation and amortization. Additionally, we disclose Adjusted EBITDA, which further adjusts EBITDA to exclude the change in fair value of interest rate swaps. We also disclose Segment EBITDA, which is segment income before depreciation and amortization.

We believe EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA are meaningful measures because they present a transparent view of our recurring operating performance and allow management to readily view operating trends, perform analytical comparisons, and identify strategies to improve operating performance. We also believe EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA are useful to investors because they provide a means to evaluate the operating performance of our segments and our Company on an ongoing basis using criteria that are used by our management and because they are frequently used by investors and other interested parties when comparing companies in our industry that have different financing and capital structures and/or tax rates. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA, however, are not measures of our liquidity or financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as alternatives to net income, income from operations, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP or as alternatives to cash flow from operating activities as a measure of our liquidity. The use of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA instead of net income or segment income have limitations as analytical tools, including: the inability to determine profitability; the exclusion of interest expense, interest income, and associated significant cash requirements; and the exclusion of depreciation and amortization, which represent unavoidable operating costs. Management compensates for these limitations by relying on our GAAP results. Our measures of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Segment EBITDA are not necessarily comparable to other similarly titled captions of other companies due to potential inconsistencies in the methods of calculation. For a reconciliation of net income to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA and segment income to Segment EBITDA, please see the section titled, "Summary Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements and Segment Information" below.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements about our expectations of future operational and financial performance that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our outlook. Statements preceded or followed by, or that otherwise include, the words "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "project," "estimates," "plans," "forecast," "is likely to," and similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "may," "would," "should," and "could" are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. The accuracy of such statements is subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected, including, but not limited to, prices for building products, changes in the competitive position of our products, commodity input costs, the effect of general economic conditions, mortgage rates and availability, housing demand, housing vacancy rates, governmental regulations, unforeseen production disruptions, as well as natural disasters. These and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to revise them in light of new information. Finally, we undertake no obligation to review or confirm analyst expectations or estimates that might be derived from this release.

Summary Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements and Segment Information

The Consolidated Statements of Operations, Segment Statements of Operations, Consolidated Balance Sheets, Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows, and Segment Information presented herein do not include the notes accompanying the Company's Consolidated Financial Statements and should be read in conjunction with the Company’s 2024 Form 10-K and the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Net income for all periods presented involved estimates and accruals.

EBITDA represents income before interest (interest expense and interest income), income taxes, and depreciation and amortization. Additionally, we disclose Adjusted EBITDA, which further adjusts EBITDA to exclude the change in fair value of interest rate swaps. The following table reconciles net income to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024, and December 31, 2024:

The following table reconciles segment income and unallocated corporate costs to Segment EBITDA, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024, and December 31, 2024:

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